If you’ve worked in Xcode (Apple’s free software for developing apps) as a newbie developer trying to learn the ropes, it certainly can be confusing at first. In fact, one could confidently say that lack of coding knowledge is really hindering the development of apps that could potentially become great on the App Store. However, this all might change, as Apple has just filed a patent for essentially a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor allowing non-developers to build apps.

Xcode

Developer: Apple Inc.
Price: free

From the patent application:

In many instances, computer-programming languages are a hindrance to electronic content creation and, ultimately, delivery to content consumers. Often content creators and designers simply lack the skill and the knowledge to publish their mental creations to share with the world. To begin to bridge this gap, content creators can use some electronic-content-development tools which allow content creators to interact with a graphical user interface to design the content while an electronic-content-development tool puts the computer-programming code in place to represent the electronic content on a user’s computer.

Now, no one (except maybe Apple) is really sure whether this thing is really going to be released or not. Although Apple did file the patent, there’s no guarantee that they’ll be releasing an actual product based off the idea. However, if they did:

• It would mean an explosion in the number of apps in the App Store. There are already over half a million apps (and counting) available, but a simple editor for apps would mean that this number could double, or even triple, as even the average Joe could get their app published
• Certainly, a lot more spam would be sent to the App Store for review. This could slow down review times for apps (right now, an app takes about a week to get reviewed by one of Apple’s staff for publication).
• Apps could become as easy to build as websites. There was once a time (maybe a decade ago) that only people with knowledge in web development could build websites. But now, there are hundreds of platforms online for anyone to share their thoughts on the Internet.
• Apple would be put ahead of the competition, as people wanting to build apps who lack programming knowledge would be much more likely to turn to a WYSIWYG editor.

This certainly could be big for Apple. The only question is, will we actually see it release as a product? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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